In the morning Carly and I discussed our frustrations with Shmuel and I sent him a message telling him not to help with our gardening without permission. He would later apologize to August. August didn’t want to hear the message, but I think it helped.
August yelled down to me at 8:48. I had closed the door completely this morning, with his permission, as he had told me it was bright sometimes. But I think he was a little surprised to find it closed. He got up, and wandered into the big bedroom and lounged in Carly’s spot. I got in and we read some Hardy Boys. We went downstairs and he played piano. He was doing further variations of his song. And he was practicing crossing his right hand back and forth over his left.
He went out and said good morning to Carly and cuddled with her. She didn’t have to go into school today, but was working on final grades and comments. Back inside he didn’t know how to divide his time between two Minecraft worlds. I offered him a suggestion, and he said, “Huh. I don’t know what to say.” I asked, “When does that ever happen?” And he replied, “All the time. Seriously.” We played in the lucky block world. We forgot it was Friday, and after just a few minutes I got a message that Gilad was available to play. Gilad wanted to play in the Greek Mythology world, so they did that. When August went into the nether and came back it got stuck on the ‘Building Terrain’ message and August said he was going to make a song about it and sang a “Building Terrain” song. They switched to Epic Jungle. Gilad mentioned his birthday tomorrow so I wished him a happy birthday.
When they were done August had oatmeal, then read to me on Rivet. No! and And Also, which are both good, then the Christmas Elves one. We then watched Iskall. He went outside with Carly, and they talked about/practiced the math lesson that she’ll be teaching on Monday. They then played chess, outside I think.
He came inside and Carly asked if I wanted the last of the coffee and he replied “sure” at the same time as me. We did some chess and he played more piano, then listened to “Little Red Riding Hood” for alone time and had crackers with tuna. He likes the smushed cracker in his mouth.
We had a lunch outside of cheese pastry things, hot dogs, and broccoli. He finished listening to “The Useless Little Dog” and then listened to a story about a crying princess, then “What I Want to Be”. Then one about a ship wreck. Then “The Tortoise and the Hare.” We went inside to Carly and he showed me the shape and distance feature on Google Maps. I realized it is also on Google Earth and he played with that on his iPad. I showed him the distance to Vivian and Colin’s house and to my parents’ house. I pointed out the different buildings, and he said he really liked the garage: “We did a ton of Brother and Sister games there…it was cute. And we slept in there.” When Carly was sick.
We did his thirty minutes of Minecraft. I’m getting bored of lucky blocks. We then went and played go fish, but didn’t make it through a full game. Instead, he wanted to go upstairs and play games on the bed. There were new students, like Nosisi (named after the girl in the No! book, and not as a pun) who was blind, and Pain, who got injured really easily.
We went downstairs and he earned a star by practicing some writing. Then went back upstairs to wrestle on the bed. He went outside with Carly, and I went for a run. He played Minecraft with the cousins, then played chess with Carly with the actual board and pieces. Cherie called, and they played chess on ChessKid. Carly made potatoes and cauliflower and he ate a lot of those. Cherie called back, with Claremay, and August played piano for her, then went back to watching Ants Canada. Krypronite was a word of the day. He stopped and told us, “Just so you know, fire ants are also called (scientific name).”
He went to the bathroom and sang/chanted a funny/annoying “Come to me” song, which he continued out in the living room as he played in the chair. Carly took him up for a bath, and they surprised a lizard, which went behind the big mirror. August decided he didn’t mind it.
She washed his hair, and he had his lollipop afterwards. When she was trying to get him dressed he said, “ForGET underwear.” Carly said it was her fake birthday tomorrow and August remembered the giant Cadbury egg we had once bought for her, but then he couldn’t handle giving to her. He giggled and told her about it, but he had forgotten that we did eventually give it to her and they had eaten it. Soon after Carly had mentioned it, a reminder on my phone went off reminding me it was her fake birthday tomorrow. August incredulously asked, “Seriously‽ You have a reminder set up for that?” We talked about her previous fake birthdays and what we’d done in Korea (McDonald’s and cheap toys, the loss of Camel).
In bed he finished his lollipop and had crackers and peanut butter. He listened to “The Goose Who Laid a Golden Egg” “The Elves and the Shoemaker” and “Margaret, Henry, and the Room of Hay” (a new version of “Rumpelstiltskin”). When he finished his lollipop he told me “I’m dropping these things down there…every week I put one down…RIP…” Meaning behind the bed. Sigh. He actually said “IRL” first, instead of “RIP” so I taught him IRL
We went and brushed our teeth, and he was pounding out interesting rhythms for me on the counter. We discussed half birthdays and fake birthdays and his Camel. He couldn’t believe he had called a leopard a camel, and I said it may have been a joke, as he’s always been making those. He was then laughing a lot, and I called him “Mr. Laffypants”, which just made him laugh more.
Back in bed he was hyper and did kicking exercises, kicking the pillow up above him.We put on the new Owen Pallett album. It took quite a while, but he did okay and I think fell asleep around 11:40.
Practicing hand switching:
Song of the day:
Writing practice 1:
Writing practice 2 – and being silly:
Playing for Great Grandma Claremay:
“Come to me” song:
Leg exercise:
